From “The Southland’s Charms and Freedom’s Magnitude” (56)
56
Farewell, alas! my native land adored!
I’ve sung thy praises in a faithful strain;
But westward life’s imperial tides have poured,
Eddying in towns, and sweeping on again,
While braver hearts have in their strength ignored
The old South limitations which remain.
And I must leave the land which gave me birth,
Or pine, an alien, on my native hearth.
From An Idyl of the South: An Epic Poem in Two Parts (The Metaphysical Publishing Company, 1901) by Albery A. Whitman. This poem is in the public domain.
Albery Allson Whitman
Albery Allson Whitman was born into slavery on May 30, 1851, on a farm near Munfordville, Kentucky, in Hart County, what Whitman called “the Green River country.” He had at least one sibling, a sister. His mother died in 1862, and his father died soon after emancipation, leaving Whitman an orphan at age twelve. He remained on the farm where he was born and continued to labor there until he moved, first to Louisville, Kentucky, then to Cincinnati. He later relocated to Troy, Ohio, where he worked and, for five months, attended grammar school.